String
by LunaticRabbit
Summary: After timeskip Team 7 centric. Sasuke can't sleep and soon finds the answer, which happens to be one of the least expected things. I suck at summaries, it really is better then it sounds. R


**A/n: I was bored one day, and since one of the chapters for Ino the Almighty matchmaker got deleted by accident, I decided that instead of rewriting it, I would make a little oneshot. Team 7 centric, no real pairing. No flames please. Review and tell me how I can improve please!!**

The youngest surviving Uchiha sat staring into a campfire, to restless to sleep.

The thing that really annoyed wasn't the fact that he couldn't sleep; it was the fact that he didn't know _why _he couldn't sleep. He and team hebi had been traveling through the woods for days, only occasionally stopping to rest for a few minutes. This was their first opportunity to get some real actual sleep, instead of stopping to drink some water. They would have gone on if Karin hadn't pointed out that they were running out of soldier pills.

So they made camp in the middle of the forest, all of them extremely tired, though some chose not to show it. **(A/n: coughSASUKEcough)**

Karin was so exhausted that she didn't even try to flirt with Sasuke before falling asleep.

So it made no sense! His teammates were sleeping fitfully, and there were little sound coming from around the forest to distract him. Sure, Juggo's slight snoring was annoying, but he could easily push that out of his mind. Or maybe it was sub consciousness that was preventing his sleep. Maybe he had forgotten something? Had he broken something important, and then forget to fix it? Had he left something behind at their last stop? Perhaps it was something about the date? The date! Yes, that was it, he was sure. He turned to the nearest person, who happened to be Karin, and shook her awake.

The red haired girl's eyes flickered open. "Hm…?" she mumbled, not sure what was going on.

"Karin, what's the date today?" Sasuke asked, though it came out like a demand.

"July 22nd," the dazed girl mumbled. After no one disturbed her for three seconds, she fell back asleep.

That's right. Tomorrow was his birthday. But that wouldn't be the cause of his inability to lie down and get some shut-eye. He was so frustrated he could stab something! So that's what he decided to do. He reached into his ninja pouch to pull out a kunai, and his hand brushed past something. His eyes grew wide in realization. He pulled out a purple-

String? Yes, a purple string. Something no one would expect to be in Uchiha Sasuke's weapon pouch. His mind though back to a time, on the same date, exactly three years ago.

_Flashback_

_The dark haired boy stood on the bridge, waiting for his team to show up. He predicted that Kakashi would be late, as usual, and Sakura would be arriving any time soon. He was right._

_A few minutes later the pink haired kunoichi appeared, her green eyes twinkling._

_"Hi Sasuke-kun!" she greeted, hoisting herself up so she could sit on the railing of the bridge. Sasuke simply 'hned' in reply. After about half hour of waiting, Naruto finally showed up._

_"Hey Sakura-chan! Sasuke-teme!" he said, running up to his teammates._

_"Hi N__a__r-Naruto, what do you have on your finger?" Sakura asked, glancing down at the demon holder's hand._

_"Hm? Oh, you mean this! Well, Iruka-sensei is treating me to ramen, and I tied this to my finger so I didn't forget! Pretty clever, eh Sakura-chan?" He answered, holding his hand out so that the pink-haired girl could view his hand more closely._

_"Wow, Naruto, for once you had a good idea!" she commented._

_"Thanks Sakura-ch- Hey, what do you mean for once?!" he shouted._

_Sakura giggled as Naruto grew more infuriated. She then pouted._

_"Naruto! Our team isn't special!" Sakura whined. This random outburst caught the attention of Naruto, and she even got a glance from Sasuke from the sheer randomness of her comment._

_"What do you mean, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, tilting his head to the side._

_"Well Ino-pig's team is special because they're named after a combination in a card game, you know, the Ino-shika-cho thing. Kurnai's team made little charms for each other," she explained, recalling the time Hinata had shown her dog and bug key chains, saying that they had made two for each person, and then exchanged them.(__****_

_"Gai's team are known as the youthful team, while we having nothing like that!" Sakura continued, counting the team's on her fingers._

_"So?" Naruto asked, hoping to see a point in his teammates rambling._

_"Don't you get it!? They all have little trinkets, a game, or a team name that they can remember each other by when they're separated! We, on the other hand, have nothing like that." The pink-haired girl explained._

_"Oh! I get what you mean! " Naruto replied, finally understanding Sakura's idea._

_"Well how about we have colors? Sasuke-teme would be dark blue, because he's all anti social and stuff, I would be green because I love the leaf village so much __**(A/n: If you don't get it, just imagine the color of the leaves)**__, and Sakura-chan, you would be pink!" Naruto suggested. Sakura shook her head._

_"No Naruto. But we could have something that has to do with colors." Sakura sad, thinking of a way to incorporate colors into some memento for the team. There was a puff of smoke, and Kakashi appeared._

_"Yo!" he said, waving._

_"SENSEI! YOU'RE LATE AGAIN!" Naruto exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at the white-haired man. Sakura was too preoccupied to even join Naruto in yelling at their late teacher._

_After Naruto finished yelling at Kakashi, training commenced. After about an hour or two, Kakshi said it was time for a break. Seeing that each of his students had brought lunch (Except in the case of Naruto, who begged Sakura if she would share until she finally agreed.) the pervert said he needed to go into town, to get lunch. He then poofed away._

_"Probably going to read his dirty book," Sakura mumbled, munching on some rice._

_Silence._

_Naruto nosily eating some of Sakura's sushi._

_Silence._

_Silence._

_Sakura yelling at Naruto for eating almost all her food._

_Silence._

_Then-_

_"I got it!" exclaimed Sakura, suddenly standing up. She received to curious glances from her teammates._

_"Got what?" Naruto asked, making a mental note to later ask Kakashi if Sakura was mentally stable._

_"Our team thing! It's purple string!" Sakura said, obviously extremely happy about this._

_"Wha…?" Naruto stated dumbly. Sakura sighed._

_"You know how you said we should use colors? Well I did. Purple is somehow related to every color. If you mix pink and dark blue, you get purple. Thus relating the color to me and Sasuke-kun. And the opposite of some shades of purple is green! And you actually gave me the idea for the second part. String is a reminder, so if we keep this, we'll remember each other. Even when we're really old. You get it now?" she elaborated._

_Naruto grinned._

_"Wow Sakura-chan, that's a great idea!" he complimented._

_Sakura smiled broadly._

_"Well it just so happens that I have a purple string with me. I brought it… I can't really remember why." Sakura said, trying to remember why she possibly brought along a random purple string. She shrugged. Digging into her ninja pouch, she pulled out along purple string and a single kunai. Taking the kunai in one hand, she got the string into three equal pieces. She handed one to Naruto, who immediately tried to __tie it around his wrist with one hand. She tied her own around her neck, though it was hidden from view by her dress. She took the last and handed it to Sasuke._

_"Here Sasuke-kun," She said, handing it to the Uchiha prodigy. The boy glared at for a few seconds, and Sakura was afraid that he wouldn't take it, before taking the purple string and shoving it into his ninja pouch._

_"Sakura-chan? Could you help me here?" Naruto asked, still fumbling with his piece of twine._

_"Sure Naruto," Sakura said, helping the blonde boy tie the string around his wrist._

_When training ended a few hours later, Sakura went home immediately, only spending a short time waving good bye to her team. Kakshi left soon after, going to read more of his book._

_So that left Naruto and Sasuke._

_"Hey teme! What do you think of the purple string idea! It was pretty clever of Sakura-chan, wasn't it?" Naruto asked, running until he was at Sasuke's side._

_The Uchiha glared at the demon vessel, clearly wanting to walk home by himself._

_"It's just a stupid piece of string," he dark boy replied._

_Naruto frowned and rolled and rolled his blue eyes._

_"You're just being an ass, Sasuke-teme," he replied, walking away towards his apartment._

_Sasuke glared at his friend's retreating back until he continued home._

_Just a stupid piece of stupid piece of string?_

_Then why did he hold in his hands as if it would break and stare at it all that night?_

_And why was it one of the only things from Konoha besides close and weapons he took to with him when he ran away to the sound village?_

_End flashback_

Why did he keep the string? Even he didn't know why. It was meaningless. It was meant only so that every member of team seven would remember each other, even when they had long gone from each other's lives. It was filled with memories.

Oh how he hated memories. He hated emotions. He hated this stupid piece of string in his hands. He hated Naruto. He hated Sakura. He hated what team seven was.

But even more then all of that, he hated what team seven had become.

**A/n: please excuse the horrible, crappy ending.**

**When I was writing this, I almost cried because I was listening to 'all good things come to an end' by Nelly Furtado, and 'Cat and mouse' by ****The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus****t**

**If you don't like this, then please don't flame. **

**However, if you do like it, review please!!!**

**: Hinata and her team made little charms for each other. Hinata made two of the Hyuuga flame, Shino made two of bugs, and Kiba made two of dogs. Each person gave their two to their teammates, and in return got two from every person.**

**Example: Hinata gave one to Shino, who then gave her one bug. She gave her last one to Kiba, and Kiba gave one of his dogs to her.**

**I hope that isn't too hard to understand.**


End file.
